“I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.” ~ Dawna Markova
I have been distressed recently by the heartfelt battle of those close to me against odds I would not want anyone to have. Their pain is familiar. I have faced it many times. Paths tinged by my insecurity; paths paved by the bold exuberance that I knew it all.
I don’t know it all. Not now. Not then. Still, watching those I love face the pain of betrayal and rejection, the seeds of doubt, the possibility that all the things we thought true questionable, made the fact known again that life holds no guarantees.
At the moment we are jolted we want to hide, but like the seed we must climb our way to the surface, sometimes in the face of impossible circumstance, to face a new reality. Yet, in our origin is the radiance of our bloom and ultimately the fruit that gives birth to a whole new possibility we had yet to consider.
Life can be a difficult journey, but oh, what a blessing it is as well. We can give up but if we do we never know the moment of revelation and self-fulfillment that goes beyond our already known reality. Afterall, to fly is to risk falling just like to unfurl our leaves is to risk curling up and tumbling to the ground from the intensity of the sun or the downpour of the skies. Yet magnificence is not found in laying low. It is found by taking on our fears and meeting them in the eye.
I struggle often what to say to those I love facing a formidable challenge. I challenge them to see the lessons in the circumstance and what part they may have played to get there. Yet nothing is black and white and often the circumstance holds no clear line as to who is at fault. The minute we draw that line we stop becoming the wing that flies and sees the truth above it all.
There are no perfect answers, but somehow, somewhere, the truth lies in the middle of a new day, whether in shadow or sunshine, along a path that crunches beneath our feet, in the glistening reflection of a leaf made so by morning dew. The answer also does not lie in our talking, but in our listening to what is true in that moment where the flower or plant meets the heart of a human, and where, finally, yes, we understand that magnificence does not lie in being right; it lies in opening our hearts to a truth that is more brilliant than the one we originally considered.
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